Beliefs, work guide choices

Ancilla instructor also enjoys nonfiction with real-event basis.

Ancilla instructor also enjoys nonfiction with real-event basis.

May 05, 2008|ANN LEONARD Tribune Correspondent

Ken Crane usually starts the day with reading "that grounds me spiritually and emotionally." He has a lamu chest he brought from Kenya, Africa, where he piles his books. "Right now, I'm reading 'II Chronicles' and the 'Gospel of Luke' and 'An Anthropological Defense of God' by Lloyd Sandelands," he said. "I read small portions carefully, and write down memorable quotes in a journal." He and his wife, Rebecca Waring-Crane, worked in Africa for six years with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency. "We were in Sudan working for mother-child health clinics for a year at the end of a period of serious famines," he said. "We were training and supporting state-run clinics at a time when Sudan had some semblance of democracy." Then the Muslim Brotherhood came to power and the government became hostile. Ken and Rebecca moved to Kenya, which was more stable and did not have the famine issues. "We worked in community development projects like water supply, agricultural training and health education," he said. "The Adventist Church had a large presence with schools and clinics, and we worked to reach out to the surrounding communities and serve the general population of different ethnic groups. "Corruption is still a big problem, but I saw plenty of reason to hope. The people could do so much with so little. If they just got a little land, simple tools and techniques, they made it stretch." Ken sees the absurdity of hopelessness. "I came across people in desperate situations, yet those people never left me feeling there was no hope," he said. "I don't deny people can reach a point -- a dark valley of their lives -- but I don't want that point to be final." Ken is originally from Santa Barbara, Calif., and has a bachelor's degree in religion from Pacific Union College, and a master's in international public administration from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He and Rebecca met in Washington, D.C., and are the parents of Justin, a sophomore at Adams High School, and Graeme, an eighth-grader at LaSalle Intermediate Academy. For the past seven years, Ken has taught at Ancilla College. Currently, he's teaching a class called Sociology of the Family, and he is on the lookout for books about family issues. "Right now, I'm doing some home reading for my classes," he said. "One book is 'Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers' by Mark D. Regnerus. "The book is based on a nationwide survey of teenagers and parents. It's an important book, based on good data and it looks at how religious belief affects sexual behavior among teens." Two other books for professional reading are: "Postmortem for a Postmodernist" by Arthur Asa Berger and "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" by Ray Kurzweil. Apart from work, Ken is reading "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" by Marjane Satrapi "because my 14-year old son recommended it." The book is a memoir told as a graphic novel of a young girl growing up in Iran under the Shah, then the regime of the Shiite Ayatollah Khomeini, and the Iran-Iraq war. Ken tends toward fiction that has the backdrop of real events, stories with character lives that are windows on the world -- for example, "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini and "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. When he was young, Ken loved reptiles. "I remember when I was 8 years old I would go to the Bookmobile which parked at the grocery store several blocks away," he said. "All my book reports for several years were on reptile books, descriptions of horned toads and iguanas, books by herpetologists. I wanted to be one of those. "Then I got into fishing, all my reading was about the techniques of fly fishing, or stories of fishing safaris." Ken does have his favorite books, and among them are "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" by Sherman Alexie. "He writes about American Indians on and off the reservation. Alexie is a wonderful writer -- the way he describes life." Another book Ken enjoyed is "Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail" by Ruben Martinez. "It's his wonderfully written account of family migrations from Michoacan, Mexico." Ken and his family are moving this summer to California, where he will begin teaching at La Sierra University in Riverside. "My wife and I have mixed feelings about leaving, but we both have family in California," he said.